Sunset Ranch: A Story of a Boy's Adventures in the West — page 42: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

36 Wild Life on the Ranch. Then there was a commotion, indeed—he saw a long bodied animal skulk away and sent another bullet after him, though probably with but indiffer- ent success. When the herder ran forward he found a gaunt gray wolf kicking his last, proving how true had been his first shot. A sense of exhilaration filled his young heart as he stood over his fierce quarry and noted the dimen- sions of the turned-down marauder. This shot in the night seemed to wipe out much of the sting that had annoyed him ever since that other occasion when, but for the opportune arrival of the young range rider, he must have fared badly. So experiences multiplied, and Cuthbert by de- grees learned the first principles of a cattleman’s success—to depend wholly upon his own resources in any emergency and never be at a loss what to do. No wonder they are a self-reliant race, and make glorious fighters in war, such as the Rough Riders Wood and Roosevelt took to Santiago! Karl was Cuthbert’s model in everything. Now, according to his own mind, Karl was far from perfection, making occasional mistakes which were frankly confessed; but Cuthbert believed him faultless so far as a knowledge of prairie love and cowboy life was concerned, and sighed for the day when his own clumsy manner of reaching results would give way to the finished nonchalance through which Karl attained the same end—what was an ef- fort for him was perfectly natural to the prairie lad. By degrees Cuthbert could ride a fairly active broncho, with only a “hackamore” about the beast’s jaw in place of a bridle; he experienced that delight in conquering his first unruly and bucking steed that - comes to the true horseman, and without which there could be no hope for him as a cowboy. _ Then he diligently went to work with the rope, ‘Comicbooks.com